


Unfinished

by Merfilly



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Future Fic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 16:45:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctor who never wanted the military and the nurse who only wanted the career are both adrift in a post-war world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfinished

They had not intended to run into each other. Benjamin suspected Sidney had known, when Sidney insisted that Pierce was the man to speak at the conference on treating post-traumatic disorders in discharged veterans. One minute he was signing a book (another one of Sidney's ideas for getting it out of his system), and the next his eyes were coming up around a pair of shapely curves to see a familiar mouth flattened in a line of severity.

"If you want my autograph, we'll need a private room and a bottle of Hershey's syrup," he quipped, keeping his voice low enough to not disturb the civilian propriety of the people moving on by them.

"Still the same old Hawkeye."

"Older maybe, and vastly improved by the common sense of a country at peace this week," Benjamin told her, smiling even though he didn't feel it in his heart. Seeing her reminded him of all he had left out of the book, all he still refused to tell Sidney in their weekly letters.

"Thought I'd say hi," Margaret told him, hesitating, before she moved slightly away. "Pierce…" She jerked her eyes to the podium he had vacated. "You said it right. All of it."

She walked away before he could praise his own genius, or anything that would take away from the serious tone she had used, leaving him with the uncomfortable feeling of knowing someone he respected had praised him.

Perhaps that should have been the end of it. Maybe he could just let her walk away, one more time. Then again, sanity had never been his strong suit, and Benjamin knew the only thing stopping him was himself in this moment. With a mutter of 'this is insane' under his breath, he took off to catch up to her, his longer legs a match for her ground-eating stride. He ignored the calls for 'Doctor Pierce to return to the table of honor', and reached out to grip Margaret's wrist before she could vanish back into the memory of the road not taken.

"Margaret…"

She looked up at him, the sharp retort for being accosted dying, and something that looked like warmth coming to her eyes. "Five sixteen." The words were said softly, before she freed her hand, and his brain caught what she had just given him. 

"Thank you." Benjamin turned to go back to his place of honor, seeing it less as a prison chair and more of the seat of opportunity.

`~`~`~`~`

She knew when the crowd would likely disperse. She also was willing to wager that Pierce would take the time to freshen himself up. Still, she had all but convinced herself that he had realized just how insane this whole venture was. They had known well enough then that they were ill-matched, no matter the sparks and respect that had flared from time to time. There was no way that could have changed, with her militant nature and his protesting soul.

"Stop being foolish, Houlihan." She looked in the hotel mirror, noted how professional she looked, with that hint of feminine mystique, and sighed. With action forming swiftly, she snatched up the small purse that matched her outfit, ready to go drown the idiocy in a martini in the hotel bar. She swung the door open… to find Pierce in a casual slacks and an Aloha shirt on. He was clean-shaven, freshly so, and despite the vaguely rumpled look of him, Margaret had to admit he still had his charm too.

"And here I thought I was bringing the party," he said, non-plussed and quick to swing at the opening of her obviously dashing out.

"I'm not getting any younger, and you, doctor, were growing unfashionably late."

"I didn't know room numbers had times attached," he told her, following her as she moved back inside, but he hesitated, cocking his head back at the door. "We could go… if you want."

She set her purse firmly down, turned to look at him with all her judgment to bear on his posture and demeanor. She saw the signs written all over him, the same ones that kept her restless as she tried to transition from the Army's draw-down on manpower to a life in a civilian hospital. Pierce, the doctor who never wanted to be there and had given blood, sweat, tears, and even his mind to any patient that needed him, could not live in this alien world as easily as he had hoped to.

"Hawkeye…."

She had his full attention then, and a moment later he flicked the deadbolt after coming fully into the room. Margaret reached out to take his hand even as she backed herself toward the bed to sit on it, making him come down next to her. The dangerous quiet, the one where he wasn't quipping and she wasn't sniping followed, before he brought his hand out of hers and up along her jawline.

"About that kiss…" he started, voice gone low with memory.

"This isn't about just that kiss," she pointed out swiftly, but she pushed into his hand along her face to encourage him.

"No," he agreed, then he leaned down and proved that kiss was not a one-off effort, awakening something inside her that had frozen over in the years of struggling to prove her worth to an Army that had less need than ever for career-minded women. He knew, he understood, and he had never seen her as less than his equal. His hands, that had performed miracles with barely more than ether and a sewing kit, moved to cup her face, sliding into her hair, as if he had to hold her there and be certain she would not just vanish. That was more than she could take, pushing her to take charge, just long enough to make it clear she was there by moving up onto his lap, skirt rising indecorously yet in so much invitation.

He shifted his hold on her to her thighs, inching the skirt ever higher, even as the kiss held them both locked tight in this moment, their surrender to what had been hinted at years prior. He didn't remember being levered back to lay beneath her, hands doing all they could to explore her thighs through her stockings, the nylon a contrasting sensation with the wool-blend of her skirt under his touch. The first kiss led to another, skirt rucking higher to expose the straps of a garter belt, holding the nylons in place. His thumbs pushed along the satin, skirt moving with his hands. She rocked against him, pushing into the touches, breaking free of a kiss to sit up and look at him when he discovered the garter belt and nylons were all there was beneath the skirt. The moment of uncertainty at her own brazenness passed over her features, but his thumbs never paused, stroking inward to caress the seam of her thighs where they met and hid further chances for exploration.

"I'm over-dressed," was his only comment, but his eyes shone with hungry approval for this woman who knew her mind and was not afraid to go after anything she wanted.

"I can fix that." She proceeded to do so, carefully trimmed nails avoiding his more sensitive skin after unbuttoning his pants and pulling the zipper down, hand slipping in to guide his swollen cock free of the boxers confining it.

"Margaret… " he began, pulling at her hips to draw her back up along his thighs.

"Shh… Benjamin." She leaned in, giving into the use of his name in this alien world that ate at them both, leaving them adrift from what had passed for their brand of sanity. "Just… now, us, and no regrets left."

"I think that's just what the doctor ordered," he murmured, slipping deep inside the haven of her body, letting her have what he knew how to give. Maybe, with the union of the insanely impossible, both would find a way to survive.


End file.
